I don’t want to seem all doom and gloom, especially after the previous post on technical writing jobs in general, but I want to talk about some interesting trends that I am seeing. And one of those is a distinct drop in job postings for technical writers with DITA experience. Right now, they account forRead More
Tag: DocBook
Book Excerpt: DITA and Other Structured XML formats
Current Practices and Trends in Technical and Professional Communication was published earlier this week in the U.K. by ISTC. Edited by Professor Stephen Crabbe, it is a book that surveys the current state of technical authoring. I was asked to contribute a chapter to the publication, which focused on DITA. My chapter is called “TheRead More
DITA Takes Flight: Some Evidence of DITA Maturity
As mentioned in the previous article there is steady growth in the job market for technical writers with DITA experience. What’s interesting is that there are further signs that DITA usage within firms is maturing, indicating that DITA is now out of the “early adoption” phase. The last time I did a DITA jobs surveyRead More
DITA Experience Rules, FrameMaker Usage Declines Further, DocBook is Dead
Job postings seeking DITA experience continue to grow while FrameMaker usage continues to decline. DocBook as a viable technical writing standard in the job market is dead. While it is clear that the majority of firms out there are still asking their writers to create their content in an unstructured manner, there is a clearRead More
DITA in the Healthcare Sector: An Interview with Mike Kocik of Carestream
DITA is seeing increasing use outside of the original computer software and hardware sectors from which it was born. One of those areas where DITA has taken off is in the healthcare technology sector, and recently I had the pleasure to interview Mike Kocik, who is the Information Architect at Carestream, where he has ledRead More
How Many Technical Writer Jobs are Looking for DITA Experience?
4% …and growing. About half-a-year ago Mekon colleague Rachel Johnson asked me whether I knew what percentage of technical writing jobs out there are DITA-related. I said I didn’t know, and became intrigued with finding the answer to that question. While I have a lengthy list of companies using DITA, I wondered what percentage thatRead More
Interview with Peter Fournier of Samalander Software
When I was compiling a list of DITA-supporting software tools recently, I ran across one firm based out of Ottawa in Canada called Samalander (not a typo) that didn’t just make one DITA-related tool, but at last count has made no less than ten of them, ranging from DITA metrics tools to link checkers andRead More